A Piece of My Mind

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Christine d'Abo tagged me for this meme on Friday.

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

SusieJ
Wylie’s Words
Red’s Red Pages
Christine d’Abo
A Piece of My Mind

Next select five people to tag:

This tag has already been around a bit, so I'm going to open it up to all takers.

Now — the questions:

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was working as an usher at the Hummingbird Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, Ontario. It was my 6th year there. Made many magnificent friends, had so many fascinating discussions during whatever part of the show we had off. Many of the ushers were in the arts - musicians, actors, filmmakers, writers, painters, comic artists and photographers. Often after the show we'd go out. Work is so much fun when you hang out with your co-workers by choice.

When I first moved to Toronto, I'd walk past that theatre (originally the O'Keefe Centre) and think, Wow - Mikhail Baryshnikov walked out of that stage door to freedom. Then it dawned on me that I could actually apply to work where my beloved ballet company performed. And they hired me!!! When the ballet season was on, I was delirious with joy. We also had the Canadian Opera Company at our theatre - now both companies have moved to the new opera house, the Four Seasons Centre. And we had concerts (Leonard Cohen and k.d.lang stand out for me) and touring shows (Sesame Street Live; Sharon, Lois & Bram; "Cats" and "Evita".) Try to imagine how far my jaw dropped when our manager announced that Mikhail Baryshnikov was scheduled. Lots of dream-come-true stuff from that time in my life. Oh wait - did I mention all the gourmet dinners we ate, once the corporate sponsors were finished eating and were enjoying the show?

Writing-wise, I'd graduated from film school two years prior and started writing a novel in 97 as a way to recover from making films.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

I was working at the Registry of Deeds, scanning old deed books onto an online database. Great team to work with, wonderful supervisor. Made a wonderful friend. Collected loads of old-fashioned names from all those deeds.

Writing-wise, just restarted the half-novel I ended up with when I did NaNoWriMo the November before. I'd run into a wall with it, but the writers' retreat last year helped me blow the wall to smithereens.

Five snacks you enjoy:

Chocolate in all forms
Superstore bakery hermit cookies
Pink Lady apples
Grapes and cheese
Sesame rice crackers

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:

"All of Me" by Billie Holiday
"Witchcraft" by Frank Sinatra
"I Feel Fine" by The Beatles
"De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" by The Police
"Potiphar" from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"

My high school performed "Joseph" and my first boyfriend played Joseph, so this song was a favorite because he was about to get framed and thrown in prison - says a lot about me!

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

* Indulge my family
* Fund a discretionary monetary award for Ryerson University film students, who are having trouble financing their film projects
* Install a magical garden
* Become a member of the National Ballet of Canada's Patron's Council (perks include use of the private lounge and 'free' wine and gourmet snacks - 'free' after you've donated $10,000.00 to the ballet, that is)
* Travel to all the seasons of all the great ballet companies, all over the world

Five bad habits:

I have five of them? Oh, let's see, now...

* I'm a sentimental saver of things. Not big on throwing stuff out, but working at it.
* I create pile-structure-sculpture instead of doing the obvious thing and put stuff away. Or perhaps throw stuff out.
* I'm not the world's best with time management. Gradually acquiring skills.
* I don't get enough sleep. Not from insomnia. Just trying to crowbar more hours into the day. Actually, it's mostly due to living in a daytime world when I'm a night owl.
* I offer my 2-cents-worth to all who complain to me about something, forgetting that they usually don't want to know my words of rabbi-wisdom. They mostly want to be listened to. I'm working on setting all my advice free!

Five things you like doing:

* Going out to dinner
* Settling into my seat at a live performance (ballet/musical theatre/concert) or at the movie theatre
* Singing in a choir
* Working on my photo albums - really more like scrapbooking with me
* Curling up on the couch with The Pack (my husband and our dog)

Five things you would never wear again:

* A wet suit (went scuba diving once with my dad, but I hated the wet suit - I think seriously I was allergic to it)
* A bra with an underwire. Why bother? It lasts 20 minutes and sproing!
* High heels - broke the bone in my foot that leads to the big toe. My foot gives out at the high heel angle.
* Leggings - it's a 90's thing
* A hairband - used to be a big hairstyle for me. That's before my migraines went ballistic on me. Don't need any more pressure, thanks.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Poetry Train Monday - 6 - In Medieval English Woods

This one is from 1986. Twenty-one years later, and I've still got the same images playing through my mind! (Current novel takes place in Dark Age Britain)

In Medieval English Woods

The pound of hooves beginning
Bodies crouching
In the waiting

The hiss of leaves
And popping branches - torn
The rip of moss from earth
The thud of hearts
In night attack

Demon shadows leap
A fear-stained man
His arm to swing at air
While one who sees his moment
Strikes
Their faces kiss
The slipping sliding for the stance
On blood-slicked rocks

The knights astride their mounts
Heavy spathas hacking
Stopped with wrenching force
By parries
Or the shield of breastbone

The sword sucks from the wound
The dying form
Slumps from his horse
And falls

Spirits linger
Cold tendrils hanging
From the shoulders of
The ones still fighting

Weary with the clotting blood
With steaming breath
The horses strain to bolt
Each head dragged by the bit
In the leaving

The knights canter from the scene
Indifference flowing from them
Like a billowing cape

Panting
The others slog
Exhausted through the mire
In confusion

Copyright 1986 Julia Smith

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Setting the Table For My Muse

I've had a productive burst of new writing lately, taking me ever closer to the end of my book. This story has had a twisty turny life. I'm finally helping it to reach 'The End', and I can see the point where it all wraps up.

I've had to nudge it along as I always do by getting myself in the right frame of mind. This involves watching films or TV miniseries that capture the same mood and emotions of whatever scene I'm working on.

If my non-writing life gets too filled up with projects and helping this person and that person, my writing suffers. I've been working on keeping all of the helping down to an absolute minimum. That's really making a huge difference. And practice, practice, practice has made a dent with my time management issues.

I do so much of my writing before I get to the butt-in-chair part, and if I don't get enough time alone to mull things over, my word count suffers. That's also been something I've been working on over the past year.

So today I had a nice chunk of time. I have a scene that's really coming together that leads into some big ticket item scenes, and I needed to start laying out a place for my Muse to come and see me. I settled in to watch "Van Helsing" with Hugh Jackman, some highlights from "King Arthur" with Clive Owen, and the ballet "Giselle" by the National Ballet of Canada.

Considering my main character is based on Gerard Butler, why didn't I put in one of his DVDs? Sometimes I need that, sometimes I need something else. Today I needed "Van Helsing" because Hugh Jackman's character has several scenes where the emotional tone is exactly what I'm looking for. Plus it's got gothic vampire-y visuals that add to my mood. The "King Arthur" stuff was for the fight sequences at the end (right time period). The ballet? That might seem the hardest to figure out.

But it's simple, really. "Giselle" is technically a ghost story by the second act, with two characters who love each other but have tragic timing for when they each realize how they feel. That's a mood I need between my two main characters.

Tomorrow I'll need to pop something else into the DVD player. But it all goes into the secret mix that only my Muse recognizes. When she's had a good feed, she always lets me know.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Recycle Time

I was tagged by

Kelly

to recycle an archived post. Recycling is good! Even in cyberspace.

I shall tag

Crabby McSlacker

and littlebirdblue

.

This post is from Friday, February 16, 2007, when I was anxiously awaiting the release of "300". I'm now anxiously awaiting the DVD release of "300" - same frame of mind!

How Comics Will Change Film

Graphic novels are to mass market publishing as romance novels are to commercial fiction. Comics, sniff the literati. Trash, agree the chattering class.

Multibillion-dollar industry, crow DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics and Fantagraphics Books. Back at ya, cheer Avon Books, Pocket Books, Ballantine Books, Bantam Dell Publishing Group and the Grand Mammy of them all, Harlequin Enterprises. Comics fans and romance readers are far too enthusiastic about their favorite artists and writers to care much about naysayers. While romance continues to dominate 50% of fiction sales, its reputation is undergoing a bit of a shift with the emergence of women's fiction as a genre.

So too with the graphic novel. If the uninitiated were to pick up a graphic novel, the level of 'graphic' and the darkness of the novel would make most people fear for the children. Until they realized that this 'comic' was never meant for children. Graphic novels are more like the storyboards for a film. As with shots composed for film, each story panel must stand alone as a means of telling the narrative, showing mood, developing character. Unlike film, the story panel is a static, two-dimensional surface, which encourages comic artists to create the sensation of movement, depth, energy and mood in a rectangular frame.

Which brings me to the excitement of the upcoming "300". This is the second film based on Frank Miller's graphic novels. "Sin City" was the first, and that captured the look and feel of the graphic novels to the degree that it took film in a whole new direction. So many of those shots set-ups pulsated with originality and a completely fresh way to inhabit the frame. Even before the edits, the images tumbled off the screen and roared over the seats, hopefully into the minds of filmmakers everywhere. And now we have "300", which faithfully utilizes significant story panels and recreates them precisely for the screen.

Directors Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder have made the first footprints in the snow. I'm hoping many other filmmakers will take a second look at the way comics see the world. Cinema is a visual medium, after all. There are infinite ways to shoot a script, so many more than long shot, medium shot, close-up, tracking shot. Studying graphic novels gives me more colors for my palette. Since I tend to see the world in vivid technicolor, I welcome any ideas that can translate my narrative into an almost physical experience for the viewer. Of course, being Frank Miller stories, "300" and "Sin City" are not for those who wouldn't welcome the sensation of being kicked in the gut.

I think any story would benefit from heightened visual dynamics, even a love story. Especially a love story. Perhaps the new frontier of romantic film would be akin to feeling a kiss form on a viewer's lips. Dynamic visuals would do that. Let's pull some other shots out of the bag, directors. The 50% share of fiction buyers who love romance would translate into an awful lot of coin at the box office. But we want to feel that lover's breath on our necks, not watch another lucky someone and see her sighing responses. Anyone willing to step up to the plate?

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Thursday Thirteen - 10 - 13 of My Favorite Ballets

Enter into the world that lives inside my heart every day, whether I can make it to an actual performance or not. Right now my beloved National Ballet of Canada is having its spring season in Toronto. Because I can't be there, here are my 13 favorite ballets that I can see over and over again!

Take a program, find your seat. Listen to the chatter of the crowd. The houselights dim. The orchestra tunes. Stepping onto the podium, the conductor acknowledges the applause from an expectant crowd. The lights go to black. The music starts and we're off to my favorite place: the curtain going up and the show beginning.